I am coming to prefer pellet hops, especially for dry-hopping, since they don't seem to soak up as much beer, and I don't have to worry about siphoning around them or putting a strainer on the siphon or anything like that. Problem is, I don't always have a choice -- I may only be able to find the variety I want as whole leaf.
Yesterday I had the radical new idea to chop up whole hops in a food processor, essentially making them behave the same as pellets. Oh whoops, wasn't so radical and new, was it, as a search on this board reveals lots of threads where people mention doing this.
So that sounds good. But a few people have expressed concern that either a) oxidation during the chopping process would degrade the aroma; or b) the hop resins would stick to the walls of the food processor, and since they are not water soluble rinsing with wort would not actually get them out. However, these sound like theoretical concerns expressed by folks who haven't actually tried it.
Which doesn't mean they're wrong, of course. But they aren't necessarily right either: even if both of those phenomena are real, that doesn't mean the net effect isn't trivial.
So to the question: Anybody out there who has done the food processor thing on their hops, and then later wish they hadn't? e.g. you found the aroma wasn't what you had hoped, it had off flavors you hadn't noticed in previous batches, etc?
Yesterday I had the radical new idea to chop up whole hops in a food processor, essentially making them behave the same as pellets. Oh whoops, wasn't so radical and new, was it, as a search on this board reveals lots of threads where people mention doing this.
So that sounds good. But a few people have expressed concern that either a) oxidation during the chopping process would degrade the aroma; or b) the hop resins would stick to the walls of the food processor, and since they are not water soluble rinsing with wort would not actually get them out. However, these sound like theoretical concerns expressed by folks who haven't actually tried it.
Which doesn't mean they're wrong, of course. But they aren't necessarily right either: even if both of those phenomena are real, that doesn't mean the net effect isn't trivial.
So to the question: Anybody out there who has done the food processor thing on their hops, and then later wish they hadn't? e.g. you found the aroma wasn't what you had hoped, it had off flavors you hadn't noticed in previous batches, etc?
Okay, I will rest easy on that, and just run the bowl through the dishwasher afterwards (if I do this, that is).
